Elections 98

State:	Maharashtra
Constituency:	Rajapur
Total Votes Polled:	442291
Winner: SHS	Suresh Prabhu	217766
Runner Up: INC	Machhindra Kambli	152724
Margin: 65042 (30%)

Elections 96

State:	Maharashtra
Constituency:	Rajapur
Total Votes Polled:	440744
Winner: SHS	Suresh Prabhu	193566
Runner Up: INC	Sudhir Sawant	127430
Margin: 66136 (15.31%)

A constituency which voted Congress for the first time in 1991, that too in a Congress citadel like Maharashtra. The influence of the Socialists has always been very strong in this coastal constituency, and in the first three elections Nehru nemesis Nath Pai of the Praja Socialist Party easily won from here. Succeeding him for the next five elections was Professor Madhu Dandavate. The Congress always came second. Then, in 1991, Dandavate was defeated by the Congress's Major Sudhir Sawant, who won 43.3 % of the vote. The Janata Dal, Dandavate's party, came in third, winning just 12.8 % of the vote. In 1996, Sawant was swept aside by the saffron surge, by the Shiv Sena's banker candidate Suresh Prabhu, industry minister in A B Vajpayee's short-lived government. Dandavate, who was third, got 19.19 % of the vote.